- In Marvel: I Start by Marrying Scarlett Witch [Complete]
- MWM Chapter 438
Statues, cobwebs, burial shrouds, urns filled with grave offerings, shattered human bones—all kinds of strange objects appeared in the dimly lit tomb passage as Leo walked through it.
For an ordinary person, just walking through this tunnel would be terrifying enough to scare them half to death. No wonder this ancient tomb had existed for so many years with hardly anyone daring to come here.
“Am I grave robbing now? I wonder if I’ll run into any ‘zombies’ here.”
After walking through numerous twists and turns, he finally exited the passage and arrived in a large, torch-lit hall, where he once again saw a bandit.
However, before Leo could greet the bandit, he watched as the bandit triggered a trap and was shot full of arrows, turning into a porcupine, dead beyond saving.
He searched the bandit but didn’t find the golden claw. Clearly, this bandit wasn’t the one named Arvel.
“Snake, whale, eagle?”
Leo raised his eyebrows as he noticed three rotating pillars engraved with animal symbols in the hall.
At the end of the hall was a sturdy metal gate crafted from a special metal, and the mechanism to open it was located in the center of the hall.
The bandit had triggered the mechanism earlier and was immediately shot by arrows, indicating that he hadn’t solved the puzzle.
The puzzle’s solution lay in correctly aligning the symbols on the rotating pillars to the corresponding animals.
“Alohomora!”
Leo didn’t bother trying to figure out the puzzle. Instead, he simply pointed at the iron gate and cast the unlocking spell.
The gate responded to the spell’s influence, and the three rotating pillars automatically turned to the correct symbols: snake, snake, and whale. The mechanism activated again, but this time, no arrows were fired, and the metal gate opened.
“With just this unlocking spell, I could probably become the greatest thief in this world.”
Shaking his head with a smile, Leo walked through the gate and continued onward.
Soon, he came across a staircase leading downward. Beside the stairs was a chest, a burial urn, and a book.
“*The Thief*.”
Glancing at the title, Leo picked up the book but didn’t open it. Instead, he stored it along with the books he had bought earlier from the Riverwood Trader.
Opening the burial urn, he found a handful of septim coins.
As he made his way through the tomb, he noticed that these urns and chests almost always contained valuable items like coins, gems, rings, and necklaces.
Although he wasn’t short on money, he enjoyed the thrill of finding valuable items every time he opened something.
“Hmm, what’s this?”
After opening the urn, he moved on to the chest. Inside was a strange crystal about the size of his palm.
While the crystal itself wasn’t particularly unusual, what intrigued Leo was the clear sensation of a soul’s energy sealed inside.
Although the energy was weak, no stronger than that of a small animal, the ability to collect and seal a soul’s energy inside a crystal was something he hadn’t encountered before.
Unsure of its purpose, Leo decided to pocket the soul gem for later investigation.
Just then, three skeevers—large, aggressive rats the size of cats—scurried out from the nearby stairs and lunged at Leo.
Skeevers were aggressive, plague-bearing creatures despised by the people of this world, as their bites could easily cause disease.
However, their attack power was far weaker than that of wolves, and even commoners could kill them with pitchforks. Naturally, they posed no threat to Leo.
After killing the three skeevers, Leo descended the stone steps and entered another passage.
“Is someone there? Haknir? Bjorn? Solin? Please, someone help me!”
It wasn’t long before Leo heard a terrified voice calling for help.
The passage ahead was thick with cobwebs—massive ones, not meant to catch flies but large enough to trap a human. He could even see several corpses wrapped tightly in webbing, drained of all blood and flesh, leaving only bones and armor behind.
Using fire magic, Leo burned away the webs blocking his path and turned a corner, entering another hall.
In this hall, a young man in leather armor, carrying an adventurer’s pack, was hanging in mid-air, tightly wrapped in webs. His cries for help grew louder as he spotted Leo.
His cries also alerted the hall’s true occupant—a giant frostbite spider, four to five meters tall, which dropped down from the ceiling.
“Wow, that’s one big spider. If it bites me, will I turn into Spider-Man?”
Leo joked as he looked at the massive creature.
The frostbite spider, of course, didn’t understand his joke. It immediately spat a large glob of venom at him, eager to attack its prey.
Unfortunately for the spider, its venom was no match for Leo. Even without using any of his other powers, his physical strength alone would have been enough to crush the spider.
With a swift motion, he drew the steel sword from his waist, and in a flash, he leaped past the frostbite spider, appearing next to the bound young man.
“Careful, this spider’s venom isn’t its only weapon. It’s also very fast—”
The young man began warning Leo about the spider’s speed but quickly stopped as he noticed the spider had suddenly gone still.
Moments later, the spider’s body split in two, dead before it could even react.
“You must be Arvel. I was hired by Lucan, the owner of the Riverwood Trader, to retrieve the golden claw you stole. Hand it over.”
Leo used his sword to cut the webs binding Arvel and immediately spotted the golden claw hanging from his belt, confirming his identity.
Realizing that Leo was after the golden claw, Arvel quickly drew a dagger and threw it at Leo before turning to flee deeper into the hall.
“Come back here!”
With a wave of his finger, Leo used telekinesis to lift the fleeing Arvel into the air and pull him back in front of him.
After controlling Arvel’s mind, Leo soon had the thief willingly hand over the golden claw and reveal everything he knew.
As it turned out, Arvel was an adventurer who had stumbled upon the secret of Bleak Falls Barrow.
It was said that deep within the barrow lay the secret to the ancient Nords’ Dragon Shout power, and with the golden claw, one could enter the barrow’s depths and obtain this powerful shout.
It was the same Dragon Shout that the Stormcloak leader, Ulfric, had used to kill the High King.
This was why Arvel had hired the bandits at Bleak Falls Barrow for a large sum to steal the golden claw, allowing him to unlock the tomb and venture inside alone.
“The power of the ancient Nords’ Dragon Shout.”
Leo rubbed his chin, deep in thought.
After all, the Dragonborn bloodline he had been granted upon entering this world included the ability to absorb dragon souls and quickly learn the Dragon Shouts.
(End of this chapter)